Shoot
by Kirachu
Summary: A retelling of some events in volume 2 of Trigun Maximum. Wolfwood x Vash.


**Shoot**

* * *

_Bang._

Time held suspended for one single moment, and then the swordsman crumpled to the ground, a bullet through the head. Blood sprayed from the open wound, splashing him across the face. He didn't flinch. Wolfwood tightened his finger around the trigger and squeezed off another. Then two more. 

Two shots to the brain, two shots to the heart. Rai-Dei the Blade lay dead on the dunes. 

"You...!" 

He heard Vash's voice cry out in anger before he saw him approach. Suddenly the Humanoid Typhoon was there, and his fist connected to Wolfwood's cheek. The sunglasses flew from his face and fell to the sand. 

"Why?! Why did you shoot him?!" 

He was such a goddamn saint. Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon, a fucking _martyr_. A hero. Even those who hurt him, even those he watched kill the people he tried so hard to protect, even the world's most wanted criminal, he let them all live. Because all people had the right to live, wasn't that right? That was the ideology Vash the Stampede liked to sprout. 

Bull shit. 

He was fast, too. Wolfwood grabbed the hand so quick to strike him, fingers tightening hard around his wrist. One flip and twist later, and he had Vash pinned to the ground, looming above him, blood that wasn't even his own dripping down his face. 

"Are you really that much of an idiot?! If I hadn't done anything, he would have shot you!" 

Vash didn't move under his hand, and Wolfwood let up on him, his grip loosening slowly. "You're underestimating them... don't be so damn naive." 

How the hell could he be so stupid? So damn _trusting_. How could he really believe that someone like that, someone like Rai-Dei, a man who had sacrificed his own humanity, would decide out of the blue to change his life around? It wasn't that easy. The world wasn't that pretty. 

"You're wrong." It came out as a low, harsh whisper. Wolfwood pulled away, face twisting in anger. 

"The hell you say?" 

"You're wrong," Vash repeated firmly. "Maybe... he would have fired, but... I would have dodged. No matter how many times I had to. It's better than to take his chance to live and change his life!" 

Yeah. That was right, wasn't it. That was the holy word of Vash the Stampede. Any man, woman, or child could be led away from the path of evil and brought back to the road of righteousness, right? 

Not the Gung Ho Guns. He didn't understand. The idiot had no idea what he was up against, what and who those monsters hunting him really were. Any man or woman that could give away their own humanity to be the lethal killing machines they were was a demon. 

And yeah, he was too. Nicholas D. Wolfwood, priest turned devil. 

"Goddamn it..." He moved fast, his fingers tightening in the material of Vash's jacket and jerking him to his feet. "You're a hypocrite, you know that?!" Vash winced under his hand. "You're so smart, aren't you? You talk like you can save everyone, but you don't want to get your own hands bloody." 

Vash didn't answer him. In that brief moment, Wolfwood realized he held the Humanoid Typhoon in the palm of his hand. He could do anything he wanted to him. He could take his gun and shoot him between the eyes, and it would all be over, all of it; there would be no more Vash the Stampede, and then he would kill Knives, too. Wipe out both of them from the planet, and maybe the whole world would live peacefully without the hero and his crazy-as-shit brother. 

Or maybe he could just hit him. Even that would be something. No. He couldn't do that either. 

But he could do something. 

His hand found his gun. He shoved it into Vash's hand, taking the other man's fingers and tightening them around the trigger. Grip around Vash tight, he lifted their arms, and forced Vash to press the barrel of the gun to his forehead. 

"Shoot." 

His eyes widened, but Wolfwood's grip on his hand remained steady. The barrel was warm against his forehead. 

"If you really believe I'm wrong, pull the trigger. In exchange, my role as the devil will be handed over to you. Then, you won't hesitate to take out the next man who comes after you." 

Was it asking too much for Vash to pull the trigger? Yeah. Maybe. To ask a man so hell bent on protecting everyone to break his own creed... the church would have frowned upon him. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. But it was what he wanted. If it helped Vash at all, if it made him open his eyes to the cynical world he lived in, then it was enough. 

"For me, it's a small price to pay," Wolfwood said softly, "if it brings out something like that in you. I'd trade my life for that." 

_Just open your goddamn eyes, Spikey._

Vash didn't move. His eyes stared hard into Wolfwood's, but there was no resolve there. Those were not the eyes of a murderer. Wolfwood snorted. 

"Can't do it, can you? You chicken shit." 

He could remember so many times yelling at the idiot to just pull the damned trigger. So many times, so many openings, so many chances he had let go. He wouldn't do it. He couldn't. 

He was quiet when he answered him, those blue eyes softening sadly. "You're the coward, Wolfwood." 

The words stung. Wolfwood's eyes narrowed on the other man. He was the coward, huh? It this idiot standing across from him that was too afraid to pull a trigger. Who the hell was the coward? 

"No matter what you do... you give up so easy." 

He remembered once on the road, the two of them had stopped in some remote town for the night. It was pathetic. The well gone dry, the hotels, bars, and stores barely bringing in enough money to survive. Wolfwood had watched the kids dressed in torn, dirty clothing walking barefoot down the road to a single room school house. But Vash had smiled in that wide eyed, open way he did, played with the kids, and joked with the old timers. 

_This place is through,_ Wolfwood said. And Vash had looked up at him with a scolding sort of smile and said, _You really are the most pessimistic guy I ever met. Have a little faith, Mr. Priest._

He didn't have any hope. He didn't have any faith. Yeah, he was a pessimist. Too jaded by the world to see any good. 

But that didn't make him a coward. 

His fingers tightened hard around Vash. "You're the one who doesn't know _when_ to give up!" 

"Why do you look so angry?" Vash asked. His voice was soft, quiet, almost concerned. Like a parent soothing a child having a temper tantrum. It pissed Wolfwood off. "You told me once that I looked better when I had a real smile. But if you could see yourself through my eyes now..." 

He didn't want to know. Screw whatever he saw. Screw him, Vash the Almighty Stampede, screw whatever he thought he saw. 

"You'd see a man forcing himself to play the devil while his heart cries out." 

For a moment, both men stood unmoving, the bloody body of Rai-Dei motionless beside them. Only the sound of the wind reached their ears. Then Wolfwood jerked away from him, fingers wrapped tight enough around the barrel of the gun his knuckles were white, and turned his back on Vash the Stampede. 

_I don't need your pity._

"Fuck you, Spikey." 

A soft laugh answered him. 

* * *

He was home again. The church was full of life, the way he remembered it being, the way it was when he had left it all behind. Laughter of children greeted his ears, and he could see them playing on the playground that he had built for them with his own hands. He smiled. To see them happy was all he could ever hope for.

"Nicky!" A voice cried out, and then was followed by another, and another. The kids saw him there and ran out to meet him, flinging open the squeaky gate and barreling across the sand. Wolfwood laughed. 

"Hey. Have you guys been good for the old lady?" 

Small hands tugged on his arm. "Nicky, hold me, hold me!" He grinned. 

"Okay, okay... hold on a sec." 

He dropped down to one knee to lift the small girl into his arms. Something red flashed across his vision. _What...?_

It was blood. His hands were stained in it, blood dripping down his fingers, his wrists, forming a pool beneath him. 

_I can't._

"Nicky? What's wrong?" 

"Sorry... I can't..." He choked on his own words and swallowed down hard the lump in his throat. "Looks like... my hands are too bloody to carry you guys now."

* * *

Wolfwood startled awake from the dream. A hand came up to run through his hair slowly, feeling beads of perspiration dotting his face, and hearing his own breathing coming out in quick bursts. 

Yeah, right. A dream. That was all it was. 

Felt damn real, though. 

He sat up slowly in bed, pushing the sheets from his body. It took him a moment to gather his surroundings. They had driven for what had seemed like days before finding the small, secluded town, where Wolfwood had nearly gotten on hands and knees to beg for two rooms for the night. The hotel owner took pity on them and let them stay. Wolfwood figured it had something to do with Vash looking up at him with eyes so sad and pathetic it would have made even the strongest of men cave. 

The so-called typhoon was in the room opposite his now. Probably fast asleep now. Maybe having bad dreams of his own. Wolfwood snorted. Why the hell should he give a shit if the needle noggin was having nightmares? 

Dragging a hand through his hair, he rose from the bed and fell into the rickety wooden chair near the window. It was still dark outside, but glancing out the window and seeing the small line of light blue on the horizon, he could see it would be morning in a few more hours. Might as well stay awake. 

He reached for his cigarettes on the table top and lit one up. Tasted stale. It was the words of Vash that dulled its flavor. He couldn't shake them from his mind. 

_You're the coward, Wolfwood. You give up so easy._ And his smiling face. _Have a little faith, Mr. Priest._

"That idiot." Wolfwood bit it out like a curse. "Never seen somebody so stupidly and recklessly put their own life on the line like that... such a fucking saint." 

He remembered the first time he had felt blood, warm and slick against his skin. There had been a lot of blows in his childhood. A lot of them... he had become numb to the pain. It wasn't until that gun was fired, when it tore him open and he felt blood gushing through his fingers, had the reality set in. 

_I could die here,_ he had thought. _I'm going to die._

He didn't fear the reaper. But it was in that moment that he lay on the floor as a child, his own blood pooling around him, did he realize. 

_I don't_ want _to die._

He had prayed. God, please don't let me die. God, please protect me. 

The memory became faded there, dull and gray. 

He thought of Vash. Did he fear death? When it was his life laid down on the line, when it was the gun pointed at him, did he fear his own death? No. That damned idiot was such a hero, if sacrificing his own life meant another could live, he would do it willingly. 

Wolfwood knew he wasn't a hero. His cause was different. He would lay his life down, but only if it meant he could see Vash pull a trigger someday and realize the harsh, cold reality they lived in. But to save his life... he would run away. 

_You're right, Spikey. You're right. I'm the coward._

"You make me sick, Vash the Stampede." 

Because Vash the Stampede was the man he could never be.


End file.
